Vantage Point

I saw the movie "Vantage Point" some time ago. What I found most interesting about the movie is the truth that came from realizing how multiple people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different from each other. With that in mind, I'm going to tell you a story - a true story - but ... I'm going to add a different vantage point at the end.

Growing up with my Dad was no easy task. Dysfunctional on good days and hell on the bad! However, this story is about the ONE MOMENT in time when my Dad was my hero!

Although my hometown is Pensacola, I have lived most of my life away from the Sugar White sands of the Gulf Coast. When I was a kid, my family always managed to make our way home at least once a year - mostly in the summer, but on an occasional holiday, as well. In my teenage years, we gravitated away from Pensacola east to Destin. One of my favorite places on the Gulf Coast is the Holidome located immediately on the beach, complete with indoor/outdoor pools, a gym, awesome continental breakfast. Everything you would want a hotel to be, including a revolving restaurant on the top floor of the dome.

In the summer of 1985, my family stayed there for a week. Life was good! On the day of this story, my younger sister and I were laying in the sun on the deck that led to the beach, in the back of the hotel. Some guy - some drunk guy - OK, some really drunk guy came walking up the boardwalk towards where we were at. It was no mystery just exactly how drunk he was, because had wet his pants and was drinking Jack Daniels out of a glass bottle that had the top broken off.

We saw him coming, but neither of us expected him to stagger all the way to where we were and practically fall on top of my sister. We kind of jumped out of the way and walked away from him. He was saying something - don't really remember what, but something perverse. Before we knew what was fully happening, my Dad came bolting out of the hotel and dealt with the man in a way only a Daddy can over his girls.

No matter what else had happened up to that moment in my life, and regardless of what has happened since ..... for that single moment in time, MY DAD WAS A HERO!!! HE WAS MY HERO!!! He was everything every little girl dreams about in her Daddy!

Enter the Twist ... The Rest of The Story ... The End of the Story

The reason Dad got out the door of the hotel so quickly is because he had been occupying his time by drinking inside the hotel, and the bar was right beside the beach access. After he helped us collect our things, our entire family retired to our rooms, with my sister and I receiving an onslaught of verbal abuse about how the whole incident was our fault for wearing our suits and tanning. Something about what did we expect would happen when we showing our bodies to drunk men? WHATEVER!

Truth is ... there are a thousand of these stories from my life. Stories that, though they have good moments indicating a happy childhood, always ended with the proverbial "other shoe" dropping. There was always a catch or a consequence! The problem is that these stories have laid the framework for who I am and carved the mindset I took into early adulthood. Looking back, the damage I see now is the same damage I saw then.

ENTER GRACE .....

Is it really important to my story that my Dad was drinking in the middle of the afternoon on a family vacation with his wife and four kids? Is it really important to my story that I was accused of things I knew weren't true? Is it really important to my story that Daddy tried to make me believe it was my fault some man, I did not even know, got drunk, wet his pants and nearly fell on me and my sister? Even then, I knew I was the victim of circumstance, if you will.

What if I CHOOSE to change my vantage point on this and every other story like it? What if I CHOOSE to pull out all the bad - not deny it - and only focus on those moments that brought joy into my life? I shudder to imagine the positive impact this could have on my life. The positive impact this could have on the lives of those around me. Not changing my testimony, you understand, but changing my vantage point; so, that those who hear my story will be shown a better way out of their own personal hell, and, hopefully, won't have to lose 24 years of their own life searching for the way out. What if?

So, on that day in 1985, my Dad was my hero!!!! And, that's all I'm gonna say about that!

Much Love,

Kalena Choosing